ICC Prosecutors: US Likely Committed War Crimes in Afghanistan

Prosecutors from the International Criminal Court (ICC) today revealed that the results of a preliminary probe have suggested the US likely committed war crimes during the occupation of Afghanistan, saying that the probe suggested troops and the CIA tortured at least 61 detainees.

The United States has made a point of not becoming a member of the ICC specifically to try to prevent American personnel from facing legal repercussions for war crimes. The ICC, however, has jurisdiction in this case because Afghanistan is a member, and the torture happened on Afghan soil.

The report said the evidence suggests the torture was not the abuses of a few isolated individuals, but rather part of a systematic US approach of mistreating detainees to try to extract “actionable intelligence” from them. The report added that secondary investigations are also ongoing related to CIA torture in Poland, Romania, and Lithuania.

Such preliminary probes are obviously just the first step, and are meant to determine if there is enough evidence and a legal basis for jurisdiction to launch a full-scale investigation. While Afghanistan obviously gives them jurisdiction, it isn’t clear if they will move forward.

That’s because the ICC would also have to establish that the war criminals are not being prosecuted for their crimes at home, and they are still seeking to get all the details of all the court-martial cases and the like the US has conducted.

Even then, the ICC has never gone on to launch a full investigation in anyplace but Africa so far, and the international body may be loathe to move from prosecuting Tuareg rebels in Mali to trying to go after CIA torture-masters.

One thought on “ICC Prosecutors: US Likely Committed War Crimes in Afghanistan”

There is always the case where they could go after THREE people the three Lawyers that told Bush that such torture was lawful, Now US Federal Court Judge Bybee and Now law Lecturer John Yoo, and Steven Bradbury they signed the memo and this is commonly known. Of course there are some problems in that in Hamdin V Rumsfeld in one of the Supreme court Justices made the Comment in a minority written opinion that war Crimes may have been committed! At the time George Bush could have immediately dealt with the matter as could the US House and Senate in regards to Bybee with
Impeachment which it wasnt the interesting things here also relate to the Geneva Conventions in the matter of the refusal to prosecute, it is according to Geneva a Grave War crime for a Government NOT to prosecute when it knows a war crime has been committed the following two articles of the third convention Article 130
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the Convention: wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, compelling a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of the hostile Power, or wilfully depriving a prisoner of war of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in this Convention.
Article 131 No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.

Noting it is clear that torture is in fact a war Crime as well as making laws to allow those who commit it to go unpunished! we may see the argument made that this particular set of articles refers to Prisoners of War, there is an identical pair of Articles in the Section relating to civilian Prisoners, of which the Ruling in afore said Hamdin V Rumsfeld made it abundantly clear that at the very least ALL prisoners taken by US forces had at the least Common article 3 rights To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

( a ) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;